Intermarriage and Divorce

God had warned his people not to intermarry with unbelieving foreigners (Deut 7:1-6). The sin was not that they married people from another country or race but that they married people committed to other gods. Moses had married a Cushite woman (Num 12:1), and other foreigners had joined Israel through marriage, notably Rahab the Canaanite (see Matt 1:5) and Ruth the Moabite (Ruth 4:1-22). These women embraced faith in the Lord, and they were blessed. On the other hand, Solomon had taken many foreign wives, and their devotion to other gods led him into idolatry, just as the Lord had warned (1 Kgs 11:1-5).

The marriage covenant is sacred, but it was even more important for Israel to remain faithful to the Lord’s covenant with them as a people. Mixed marriages would produce children who were not fully committed to Israel’s faith, having been influenced by their foreign parent’s idolatrous beliefs. This compromise would lead Israel back to where they were before the Exile—to wholesale unfaithfulness to God and a wholehearted embrace of false religions (see Judg 3:3-7; 14:1-9; 1 Kgs 11:1-8; 2 Kgs 17:7-17).

In Ezra 9 and 10, the Jews who had returned from exile had married people who served other gods. Ezra’s solution (divorce) is not prescriptive for believers today. In the new covenant under Christ, the faith of a believer sanctifies his or her marriage and children, so marriage to an unbeliever does not threaten the identity or purity of the community of God’s people (1 Cor 7:14-16). The apostle Paul realized that divorce might occur when believers and unbelievers married, but he did not encourage believers in that situation to seek a divorce (1 Cor 7:10-13). Certainly, the wise policy to avoid these problems is to heed Paul’s advice not to marry an unbeliever in the first place. God’s people need to remain separated from what is unholy: “How can righteousness be a partner with wickedness? How can light live with darkness? What harmony can there be between Christ and the devil? How can a believer be a partner with an unbeliever?” (2 Cor 6:14-15). But those who are married to an unbeliever today have God’s assurance that he can use that difficult situation for his glory (see also 1 Pet 3:1-2).

Passages for Further Study

Deut 7:1-6; Josh 2:1-14; 6:23-25; Judg 3:3-7; 14:1-9; Ruth 4:1-22; 1 Kgs 11:1-8; 2 Kgs 17:7-17; Ezra 9:1–10:44; 1 Cor 7:10-16; 2 Cor 6:14-15; Heb 11:31